Prizes and Awards: Giller Prize Shortlist
2002
|
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Product Details
|
Product Description
From Amazon
Carol Shields has announced that Unless will be her last novel, and it may well be her most despairing book. Like many of her novels, Unless is about a writer--in this case, Reta Winters, a middle-aged novelist, mother, and translator who lives in a pastoral town just outside of Toronto. Reta lives a happy and successful life until her eldest daughter, Norah, abandons family, boyfriend, and university to panhandle on a busy and slightly seedy Toronto street corner, saying nothing and wearing a sign that reads only "Goodness." Norah's strange self-sacrifice sends Reta into despondency, and she seeks some sort of explanation for her daughter's behaviour in a profoundly pessimistic mode of feminism, insisting again and again that Norah, as a young woman, was simply shut out of any hope for a fulfilling life by a monolithic and masculinist culture.
This nearsightedly negative view of feminism, and Shields's narrator's inability to see her three daughters as human beings, strains the credibility of Unless. Shields can be a wonderfully ironic writer, but that temperament is largely absent here, and much of her usual sophistication is lost in Reta's solipsism. Her prose is as delicious as ever, but that alone is not enough to carry the book. Unless will appeal to devoted readers of Shields, but it cannot be counted among her strongest work. Those who have never read her (or who have only read The Stone Diaries) are better off turning to Swann or Larry's Party, or even seeking out her superb debut, Small Ceremonies. --Jack Illingworth
From Publishers Weekly
If I have any reputation at all it is for being an editor and scholar, and not for producing, to everyone's amazement, a fresh, bright, springtime piece of fiction,' or so it was described in Publishers Weekly. That cheeky self-description sums up the protagonist of Shields's latest, the precocious, compassionate and feisty Reta Winters, an accomplished author who suddenly finds her literary success meaningless when the oldest of her three daughters, Norah, drops out of college to live on the streets of Toronto with a placard labeled Goodness hung around her neck. Shields takes an elliptical approach to Winters's dilemma, slowly exploring the possible reasons why a bright, attractive young woman would simply give up and drop out. As Shields makes her way through Winters's literary career, her marriage and the difficulties she and her daughter face in being taken seriously as women in the modern era, she employs an ingenious conceit by tracking Winters's emotions as she tries to write a sequel to her light romantic novel while helping a fellow writer, a Holocaust survivor, work on her memoirs. As Norah's plight deepens and the nature of her decision begins to surface, the romantic novel turns dark and serious, and Winters faces a rewrite when her long-time editor dies and his pedantic successor tries to introduce a sexist plot twist. Reta Winters is a marvelously inventive character whose thought-provoking commentary on the ties between writing, love, art and family are constantly compelling in this unabashedly feminist novel. The icing on the cake is the ending, which introduces a startling but believable twist to the plight of a young woman who, in doing nothing... has claimed everything. The result is a landmark book that constitutes yet another noteworthy addition to Shields's impressive body of work.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.
Suggested Tags from Similar Products(What's this?)Be the first one to add a relevant tag (keyword that's strongly related to this product)
|
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
|
Share your thoughts with other customers:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most helpful customer reviews
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Beautiful work of subtlety,
By Magnolia Flutter (Vancouver, CAN) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Unless (Paperback)
Unless is beautifully written. It may be too subtle for many people (see reviews claiming it to be tedious), but if you look into her finely woven story, there are many layers of overlapping meaning. If you are not a feminist, Shields may seem to assume too much. Yet I find her feminism to be right on the mark, humble and poignant.She points out the irony of writing about a woman who is writing about a woman writing. But going through the story, she teaches a clinic on how to write a story. I found it captivating and have read it repeatedly and recommended it to all the women in my life. Shields also embraces the accusation that she writes about the small moments and small lives. This book was much more memorable than the Stone Diaries which was also fascinating.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
2.0 out of 5 stars
Rambles,
By
This review is from: Unless (Paperback)
I agree with the reviewer, Carrad's, statement, "Moaning for pages and pages and pages about how female authors and characters have been marginalized for centuries does not justify the artistic failure inherent in marginalizing all the male characters in the book, who are poorly-realized cardboard cutouts." The main character Reta is pretty presumptious about why her daughter has withdrawn from society and yet in the end the reason is something very different. Although I can see the realtionship and symbolism. But it seems that Shields uses this novel to ramble on about woman's plight of being powerless and other political musings. It just ends up being a very disconnected and uninteresting novel.
9 of 11 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Unless...An Exploration of Our Worst Fear,
By
This review is from: Unless: A Novel (Hardcover)
Carol Shields writes of a mother's worst fear....a child who detaches from society to live on the street. Throughout the journey, the mother microscopically examines her past and present in an attempt to understand why her daughter would do this.Anyone who has ever had to face a loss like this could identify with Carol Shield's portrayal of a life that has gone awry. Carol touches on many nerves and many issues in this beautifully written novel.
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
Want to see more reviews on this item?
|
Most recent customer reviews |
Listmania!
|
|
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
